Québec one of world’s leading economies

Québec one of world’s leading economies

Presse Canadienne – Le Devoir – November 25, 2004 Québec may be number 93 worldwide in terms of population, but it is a global leader when it comes to the size of its economy.

A study conducted by the Institut de la statistique du Québec (ISQ) has shown that Québec is number 37 worldwide in terms of the size of its economy, behind Greece (36th), Switzerland (35th), Austria (34th) and Sweden (31st), but ahead of Portugal (40th), Norway (42nd) and Denmark (44th). The Canadian economy is the 11th-largest in the world.

The ISQ carried out this ranking based on GDP for 2003, taking into account purchasing power parity (PPP) with the American dollar. Québec’s GDP last year totalled $US210 billion (PPP), equivalent to 20.8% of Canadian GDP.

Québec’s per-capita GDP in 2003 was US$28,044 (PPP), slightly higher than the figures for Hong Kong and Japan and behind Sweden. The differences were under 0.5%. Québec was thus in 16th place on a per-capita basis. The top-ranked country was Luxembourg, followed by the United States, Norway, Ireland and Canada.

In terms of trade, Québec exported US$46 billion (at the current exchange rate) in goods to foreign markets in 2003, equivalent to 25.3% of its GDP. It was thus the world’s number 36 exporter. It imported $US45 billion in goods last year, equivalent to 25.1% of GDP; this made it the world’s number 32 importer.